


A Sunset

by MDJensen



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Steve is a mess, as he has a right to be, but the universe sort of looks out for him, not even sure what else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 00:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17193332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MDJensen/pseuds/MDJensen
Summary: A kind neighbor, and a phone call to Danny, get Steve through the first few hours. Post 9x10.





	A Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Graham Dexter is mentioned briefly as Steve and Joe drive to Joe’s ranch. He’s Joe’s neighbor, whom Joe told to leave for safety. Beyond that all that’s stated about him is that he’s ex-army (and married to his fourth wife). It also seems, though was not directly stated, that the horses they borrow are his.

The medical team arrives just as the last of the sunset is fading; Steve’s pulled himself together by then, for the most part. He carries Joe to the helo, lays him down with no further tears. Tells the paramedics what they need to know, including where to find Cole’s body, and does all this with enough sternness and authority that they don’t press anything: don’t insist on stitching his forehead, don’t try more than once to get him to return with them.

They leave him.

Leave him in the field, under the ponderosa pine, with two borrowed horses and Joe White’s blood on his skin, going stiff and a little itchy.

It’s cold. Not hypothermia-level cold, strictly speaking, but bad enough that—combined with injury and grief and probably low blood sugar to boot—Steve feels himself shivering, and pretty badly at that. He needs to go back. Needs to eat something and drink some water and take his meds; needs to get some butterflies on his forehead and change the dressings on his other wounds. Needs to get warm.

Instead he hugs himself as best he can and leans under Joe’s tree, watching the stars come out.

It’s the horses that actually notice first. They sputter a little, tossing their manes, a full few seconds before Steve notices the figure at the edge of the clearing.

Steve draws his gun quickly enough that he thinks it makes up for that.

The figure halts. The horses, which have stood loyally for an hour now, snort again then trot away, towards the man who seems nothing more than outlines in the moonlight.

For a split second Steve honestly allows that it’s Joe. But it’s not, of course, and as he watches the horses greet the man like Eddie greets him at the front door, he searches for the name that’s buried behind hours of combat and grief.

“Graham Dexter?” Shit, his voice sounds horrible.

“Who are you?” the man calls back. “Joe, you there?”

“Graham Dexter?”

“That’s me,” the voice says, and Steve feels himself start to shiver again. In the absence of a threat, that burst of adrenaline didn’t stick around long. He’s going to be useless without it.

He lowers the gun.

Dexter keeps his hands up. “If you know me, I’m guessin’ you’re with Joe. That puts us on the same side. Does that sound right?”

Steve can’t do anything but nod.

“All right. I’m puttin’ my hands down now, and I’m comin’ closer. Can you tell me where Joe is?”

He stops, still a few feet apart but well enough to be seen. Graham Dexter is Joe’s age, maybe a little younger, but he’s the kind of ex-military guy who’s let himself go, spent his retirement eating for the calories he used to burn, once upon a time.

“Same side,” Dexter reminds him, quietly. “Where’s Joe?”

The world tips.

Dexter still moves pretty quickly; he catches Steve under the elbows and keeps him upright while Steve sways. “Where’s Joe?” he says again, though he sounds like he knows the answer.

“’s dead,” Steve croaks. Then the horizon lurches again and he pitches forward, so badly that they both have to shuffle their feet to stay standing.

“Steady, steady,” Dexter murmurs; Steve gulps down air, fingers digging into the sleeves of Dexter’s jacket. “You’re hurt. Let me patch you up, at least. Can I do that?”

“Y-yeah,” Steve gets out, most of his weight still braced by this stranger. He can feel the decompression picking up, and know it’s going to be a bad one; his head is spinning, stomach going with it, lungs hitching.

“What’s your name?”

“M-m’Garrett.”

“You Navy, too?”

“Yeah.”

“All right, then,” Dexter soothes. “I’ve gotcha, squid.”

He brings Steve to one of the horses, and helps to curl his hands around the reigns. It’s all Dexter at this point; Steve’s barely standing. Does that bother him? Yes and no. Ninety-eight percent of him feels safe with Dexter; the two percent that isn’t sure is the same two percent that doesn’t care about anything right now, living/dying included.

He gets on the horse. Closes his eyes and lets himself be led.

Maybe ten minutes pass, then the horse stops; Steve peels his eyes open to the sight of a small ranch house, pickup truck in the drive. Dexter slips from his saddle. He leads both horses to their enclosure, Steve along for the ride, then extends a hand to help Steve down.

Steve shudders once more as his feet touch the ground. He opens his mouth to thank the guy, but shuts it almost instantly as his stomach heaves. For a second he honestly thinks he’ll vomit. But he doesn’t, and Dexter gets a hand on his back and leads him up the path, up to the house, through the front door.

It’s warm inside. Steve’s skin aches with the contrast, and pricks with sweat, like he’s spiking a fever.

Something else thaws too. His eyes sting, and he bows his head and tries to breathe as fresh tears swell.

Then Dexter’s hand is on his back again. “Bathroom’s the first door on the right,” he says, evenly. “Can you shower?”

“Sir.”

“Good man. When you hear the door open that’s just gonna be me, leaving you some clean clothes, all right?”

Steve nods, throat once again too tight to speak. Then he shuffles down the hall and into the bathroom, runs the shower as hot as it will go, strips, and climbs in beneath the spray.

And stands. And breathes.

He should cry. Should get it all out of his system now, in privacy, but suddenly his tears have dried up and all he manages is a few half-hearted sobs. Honestly, he barely has the energy to grieve. Suddenly he’s really feeling the multiple beatings he’s taken over the last few days, and emotional pain takes a backseat to immediate, physical misery. _Sickness_.

His stomach cramps. The urge to heave is overpowering, and he braces one hand on the wall and pukes a little onto the ceramic floor. Viscous yellow liquid slides towards the drain. He brings the other hand up, pressing for purchase against the tile, and vomits again, a lot more this time, the heat of it foreign against his almost-frozen lips.

Holy shit, he _aches_. Head and arms and legs and skin. His insides have dissolved. And Joe is—

He straightens. Splashes the water to wash his mess away, then turns towards the showerhead and rinses his mouth out. The world feels less muzzy, now that the nausea’s been satisfied. It’s enough of a toehold for him to steady himself a bit, pull back together. Yes, Joe’s dead. And there’s going to be more tears, and nightmares, and god, who knows what else. But right now, he can manage. He can handle this.

So he washes the grime from his hair, then turns attention to the rest of himself, scrubbing where the skin isn’t broken, lathering gently where it is. When it’s done he feels halfway human again. He shuts the water off and dries himself carefully, then dresses in the oversized clothes that have been left for him.

Doing so, he catches sight of the design on the t-shirt. It says _Go Army Beat Navy_ _2016_ — 2016 being the year that the Army broke the Navy’s 14-year streak. He runs a hand down the smooth screenprint and manages a smile. It’s the exact sort of thing that Joe would pull—well, not that Joe would have an Army shirt, but it’s the exact sort of thing that he would have found funny.

Steve takes a deep breath, goes out to the main room.

“Was gonna say food first,” Dexter muses, scanning Steve up and down from his position on the couch. “But you’re bleedin’ pretty good. I think first aid first. Food second.”

“’m grateful in either order,” Steve replies, earning him a flash of approval in Dexter’s eyes. He wonders if this is the first full sentence he’s spoken, but can’t remember. “Gotta say, though, if you really wanted to play the good host, you’d’ve left me a different shirt.”

Dexter grins, and it almost hurts how kind he looks in that moment. “Thought you might like that, squid. Hey, sit, sit.”

Steve lets himself be waved over to the couch, where he sits hard; he does feel better, but to be honest, _better_ in this case is still pretty awful. He tries not to hold his breath as Dexter tests for fever with the back of his hand.

“First name, McGarrett?”

“Steve,” Steve replies.

“Well, you can call me Graham, Steve. The bad news is, I think this officially needs stitches. You with me?”

“Yessir.”

“Headache?”

“Yessir.”

“Nauseous?”

“I was. Not so bad now.”

“I gotta say, I was thinkin’ concussion, with how you were acting before. But you seem all right now. If it’s there, I’ll bet it’s mild. You ready for these stitches?”

“Mm,” Steve hums, letting his eyes slip shut.

He hears Graham open his medical bag. Sits, unmoving, counting the sutures as the man sews the wound on his forehead with expert, if ungentle, hands. Only four—not bad. Steve opens his eyes again and watches as Graham dresses his other wounds, some of them new, some of them older but freshly opened from the shower.

“All right,” Graham says, packing his bag up. “I’ll heat up some soup. Go wash your face.”

Steve’s first instinct is to say that he just did, but the sticky feeling down his right cheek tells him he bled enough before the stitches to need it washed again. Damn. The last thing he feels like doing is standing up—and he wants to walk back to the bathroom even less.

Graham smiles patiently. “Never mind. Stay put, son.”

At the sound of the word Steve nearly loses hold again; but he keeps it, however tentatively.

Graham leaves him alone for a moment. When he returns he has a mug with a spoon sticking out of it, and a small, damp towel. Steve accepts the mug, and lets Graham wipe the blood from his temple and cheek.

When he’s finished, he nudges the mug with his fist. “Just have what you think you can handle,” he advises. “Listen: you got people comin’?”

Steve swallows a sip of broth, distantly pleased by how it soothes his throat. “Haven’t called ‘em yet.”

“Kinda figured. Well, when you’re ready, you can use the landline.” Graham gestures towards the end table at Steve’s side, where there’s an old-fashioned cordless phone charging in its dock.

Steve nods, takes another drink of broth. Gets ambitious, then, and uses the spoon to scoop up a few noodles. “Not to sound ungrateful,” he rasps, once he’s gotten them down. “But Joe said he told you to, uh, get outta town for a bit.”

“He did. So I got my wife to her sister’s, and came back as soon as I could. To a ranch with two horses missing, and a damn squadron of police cars flashin’ up the road.” He meets Steve’s eyes for a moment, then lets him look away. “I won’t ask you what happened—”

Clearly he’s about to say more, but he lets it end there. Steve eats some more soup, trying to shrug off the tension of the unfinished sentence.

He gets down a good two-thirds before his stomach makes him stop. Graham pushes to his feet with a grunt, and takes the mug from Steve’s hand. “I’ll leave you alone to make that call,” he says, a little gruffly.

To make that call. To call his team. It’s long overdue; Lou has probably paced a hole in the floor of the palace by now, and odds are he’s still beating Junior for patience. But this call makes it real. This call puts the world back spinning again, and he’s _not fucking ready_ —

Well. Too bad; he has to be.

But he doesn’t have to call the Palace first; shouldn’t, really, given the likelihood of breaking down a little bit the first time he tells someone who isn’t a stranger. He hadn’t wanted Danny’s trip disturbed. But the longer he waits, the longer the rant will be for not calling sooner, so Steve plucks the receiver from the table and dials the familiar digits.

As the phone rings, it occurs to Steve that he has no idea what time it is. Sunset could have been thirty minutes ago or it could have been four hours ago, and what times does the sun set in Montana in December anyway?

The line connects. “Danny Williams.”

And it is so fucking good to hear Danny’s voice that tears come flooding instantly; they’d been inevitable, but for chrissake, he couldn’t even make it ten seconds?

“’t’s me,” Steve chokes, cradling the phone to his cheek, sniffling a little.

“What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“Montana,” Steve gets out, then clears his throat and forces himself to make a little bit more sense. “Danny, when I hang up, you need to call Lou. He’ll fill you in.”

“You called me, Steven. You fill me in, now.”

“Joe’s dead.” It bursts out of his chest, barely speech. “He’s dead, Danny, he’s dead—”

“Okay, babe, I hear you.” All the stridency has evaporated from his tone. “I’m coming, okay, Steve? I’m coming, just—”

“No, wait! Danny—Danny, wait.”

“I’m here. I’m here, babe.”

“You can’t come yet. I’ve gotta—I’ve gotta think this through. Think of the next move.” With his free hand he mops his eyes and nose. “This isn’t something we can rush into.”

There’s a pause. “So you’re telling me not to come now.”

“Correct. You wait.”

“I hate that plan, Steven. I fucking hate it.”

Through still-streaming tears, he smiles. “I know you do.”

“Are you hurt? Has anyone checked you out?”

“I’m at Joe’s neighbor’s. He’s Army; he patched me up.”

Another pause. “So you just called me—to tell me—to stay put.”

“Yeah,” Steve gets out; but it hurts a little, because honestly, no, he called to hear his best friend’s voice, and Danny should know that.

But maybe he does, after all.

“You got a minute?” Danny asks, softly.

“Yeah.”

“You wanna—you wanna hear about the tours, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Steve sobs, feeling his face crumple up; he covers his eyes with his free hand and sits, crying quietly, as Danny talks about lecture halls and dorms and campus coffee shops.

“Two of her top three are on the mainland now,” he says at one point. “You’re really gonna have to help me push for UH. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers, reflexively, though he’s not entirely sure what he’s agreeing to. Danny sighs.

“Steve, you need to get some sleep, okay? In the morning, you think it over, you decide when you want us there. And listen, if you haven’t told me in the next forty-eight hours, I’m coming anyway. Invite or no.”

“Okay,” Steve croaks. The call feels almost-over, as does this current crying jag, so he wipes his face again and sniffs and swallows until his nose is mostly clear.

“Okay. Hey, just—listen, okay? Just—don’t—” Danny sighs again. “Just don’t do that thing you do, where you act like you don’t have anybody waitin’ for you back home. You have a lot of people waiting for you back home. And I need you to remember that. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll see you soon, Steve,” Danny says, so much love and worry in his voice that Steve has to close his eyes.

“See you soon, Danny,” Steve whispers, and hangs up the phone.

The next few minutes pass strangely. He sits on this unknown couch, knees spread wide, head dipping low towards his lap, phone dangling from one all-but-nerveless hand. He doesn’t cry anymore, but he’s not really breathing right, either. It’s real now, in a way it hadn’t been before, and the weight of it is such a physical thing that he’s not sure he could right himself even if he wanted to. Even if he had to.

What finally breaks this spell is the feeling of the phone being tugged from his hand, replaced by a plastic water bottle. Graham returns the phone to its dock. The charging pieces click together in a way that Steve would normally find satisfying.

“You need sleep, son,” the man says, firmly. “Want something for the headache?”

Steve shakes his head; he does, but his stomach’s bad again and trying to swallow pills right now would just end with him losing the pills and the soup, so. Best not.

Absently he realizes he hasn’t taken his meds today, but they’re back at Joe’s. So that’s not happening either.

“I won’t stop you from sleepin’ on the sofa, but I do have a guest room.”

At this, Steve manages to raise his head a little; sees Graham standing before him, grey-haired and beer-bellied and real enough to anchor himself to.

He stands.

“I’ll crash there, if you don’t mind,” he hears himself say. Graham points him in the right direction, and pats his arm as he leaves.

The guest room is colder than the main part of the house, but there’s more blankets on the bed than Steve can count. He slides underneath the bottommost layer. It’s smooth, cool cotton, and he for a moment he’s colder than ever, but besides this he can see at least two fleeces and one dark, geometrically printed wool blanket on top. It’ll warm up nicely in a minute or two. And maybe in anticipation of this or maybe just because he’s lying down, Steve feels himself finally stop shivering.

There’s a comfort to a soft, sturdy bed that nothing can negate. Steve shifts a little, wrapping the bottom few layers around himself like a cocoon and curling up on his side. He’s still in a state, it seems, where comfort makes him cry. So he surrenders to it yet again, clutches the blankets to his face and feels his tears bead up against the thick, scratchy wool.

Steve closes his eyes. Walks back in time, back up the road, to the ponderosa pine, and settles beneath it. Takes Joe’s body into his arms. And falls asleep to the sound of his own weeping, and the memory of a sunset.

**Author's Note:**

> So I did post a different post-9x10 fic maybe a week or so ago, which I ultimately took down again for two reasons-- one being that it depicted Steve leaving the ranch, when promo pics suggest that he doesn't. And two, I just didn't feel like I'd gotten it right. So this is my second attempt, and I hope you all enjoy :) not sure if having an OC was the best idea, but I wanted somebody there immediately, and I also just love the idea of the universe in general looking out for Steve. Anyway.
> 
> "Squid" is apparently something that other branches of the military call sailors. Apparently. I really can't say that that's true; I didn't spend too much time researching that specific detail. Oh, but the outcomes of the Army-Navy games referred to are correct, according to wiki.


End file.
